Mists of Pandaria Buff and Debuff Design

We recently released an update to the Mists of Pandaria talent tree. Since the expansion is still in development, these updates represent a snapshot of where we are at any given moment and not a final design where we step back and say “Ladies and gentlemen, we have achieved perfection. Let us not change a thing.” If you’ve been playing the game for a while, you’ve probably realized by now that we never think we’ll hit perfection, and we probably never will.

One design that we haven’t focused on much yet is the plan for various group buffs and debuffs. Some specs have their buffs in place and some do not. Rather than trying to describe each omission, we thought we’d just dump the whole design on you here. As with the rest of the expansion’s systems, we’re not even in beta yet, so there’s plenty of time for things to change.

First, some underlying design goals, so you might understand where we’re coming from. Our main goals for group buffs are:

Make you feel more powerful when grouped with other players.

Give you lots of freedom to invite whom you want. This gets to be a problem when there are too many mandatory buffs spread out among too many specs. . .

. . . But not offer too many incentives to class stack. If you can achieve every buff with, say, only three players, then there might be a tendency to fill all of the other slots with whoever is best for a particular situation. Some class stacking is inevitable at the cutting-edge level, but to some extent, the players on the cutting edge of raiding enjoy extreme min-maxing. For the rest of us, we try to make sure you can finish all of the encounters without feeling like you need a huge roster of folks waiting in the wings for their one fight.

We tend to be more generous to DPS specs, since groups -- especially raids -- already have ample reasons to bring tanks and healers.

We generally don’t want a DPS spec to have to switch to a different spec in the same role just to bring a different buff. An example would be a Combat rogue who has to go Assassination just for a buff. In our experience, players are less likely to switch from a ranged to a melee DPS spec just for a buff, so DPS shaman and DPS druids might bring different buffs.

And finally some notes on the categories below:

The list only includes what we consider “traditional” buffs, such as Prayer of Fortitude. It doesn’t include utility like being great at snaring, battle rez, knock backs, high DPS while moving, and other mechanics. Those ultimately all factor into a raid or Battleground comp as well.

The matrix is a little more complex than it appears. A paladin, for example, can only offer one Blessing at a time, while a warrior can only do one shout at a time. You can’t assume one character can cover every buff or debuff listed below at the same time.

Some of these are active (you must cast them, like Prayer of Fortitude) while others are passive. Note that totems no longer bring passive buffs as a rule.

You’ll see several categories consolidated or gone. Bleeds no longer made sense, since everyone who cared about bleeds already buffed themselves. Magical resistance we just removed from the game, though there are some abilities that provide magical damage reduction.

We are still likely to use the design that hunters, especially Beastmaster hunters, can fill in for missing buffs or debuffs by using certain pets.

Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street is the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft. He was unsuccessful in convincing the rest of the class team to change Arms warrior mastery to decreased falling damage taken.

Comments

Comment by unholly

on 2012/03/12 19:17:55

It seems warriors will be the king of debuffs. 4 out of 6 total debuffs can be applied by warriors. How nice...

Do you have any idea how much it will hurt your dps to maintain something like thunderclap and sunder armor? Every guide out there tells you to avoid applying debuffs (unless its convenient, like Colossus Smash glyphed or Mortal Strike) or our dps will plummet. If they want to bring a warrior to manage all the debuffs, chances are they'll regret it when they look at the DPS meters.

what are you talking about, go and read PvP guides !

Comment by unholly

on 2012/03/12 19:20:48

It seems warriors will be the king of debuffs. 4 out of 6 total debuffs can be applied by warriors. How nice...

Do you have any idea how much it will hurt your dps to maintain something like thunderclap and sunder armor? Every guide out there tells you to avoid applying debuffs (unless its convenient, like Colossus Smash glyphed or Mortal Strike) or our dps will plummet. If they want to bring a warrior to manage all the debuffs, chances are they'll regret it when they look at the DPS meters.

"You can’t assume one character can cover every buff or debuff listed below at the same time."

...so you see: no warrior will likely have to keep up more than one debuff at any time.

As always GC is talking about PvE and not caring anything about PvP... having that much debuff in PvP is too much.... don't matter if you can apply at same time or not...

Comment by AveryZan

Also what happens to the Mangle / bleed damage debuffs and reduced attack speed debuffs?

Comment by Zashi

on 2012/03/13 23:45:50

So if i am reading this right, Shaman totems are useless, and we all get our own buffs? I am all for change, but i really wish they could just leave the talent trees alone.

Comment by Nathanyal

on 2012/03/14 00:13:45

In all honesty the talents trees aren't really being changed all that much. You still get your damage/healing percents through leveling up, and you get to pick some abilities at certain levels. With the new talents you'll actually make more meaningful choices then compared to what we pick from now.

Shamans are only losing a few totems, such as the Spell Resist one and a few other buff totems. The haste totems are just going to be a passive buff, like how they are for other classes. Totems will be more of a CD type deal, instead of just a buff item. This will give resto a few more healing CDs as well as giving ele/enh more dps CDs.

Comment by iamleejn

on 2012/03/15 02:59:18

Attack speed debuffs are gone. This was mentioned a while ago in one of the tanking blog posts. GC (I think it was him) mentioned the issues of balancing them on some raid bosses (Baleroc's decimation blade comes to mind).

Comment by 1Adinath

on 2012/03/16 04:10:45

MoP - SuPeR

Comment by unholly

on 2012/03/16 22:18:15

So if i am reading this right, Shaman totems are useless, and we all get our own buffs? I am all for change, but i really wish they could just leave the talent trees alone.

Only shaman buff totems are useless. They already announced that they want shamans to have totems for utility (like Tremor) only. Buff totems will be passive buffs. Not sure about healing or mana totems tho... They will still probably be in game, not sure.

Comment by Mikula

on 2012/03/18 07:55:05

I seem to be reading this and the talent tree right... then as a retribution paladin of 3 years, i'm about to lose 90% of my utility, and my raid viability is going to plummet.

I'd really LOVE to know if ghostcrawler really thinks trading off the old BoM, auras, and a good chunk of retribution self reliance is really worth a 5 mastery buff. Oh, we did get the physical debuff... that frost and unholy dks will also bring. Yeah, I sound butthurt, but it's because the way they're treating ret is #$%^ing pissing me off. If I wanted to play a tank class, i'd play one. There's no need to absolutely demolish a tree to encourage people to roll healers and tanks. -_-

Comment by Adamsm

on 2012/03/18 12:12:17

I seem to be reading this and the talent tree right... then as a retribution paladin of 3 years, i'm about to lose 90% of my utility, and my raid viability is going to plummet.

I'd really LOVE to know if ghostcrawler really thinks trading off the old BoM, auras, and a good chunk of retribution self reliance is really worth a 5 mastery buff. Oh, we did get the physical debuff... that frost and unholy dks will also bring. Yeah, I sound butthurt, but it's because the way they're treating ret is #$%^ing pissing me off. If I wanted to play a tank class, i'd play one. There's no need to absolutely demolish a tree to encourage people to roll healers and tanks. -_-

Have you look at the actual Ret Spec though?

Comment by kickthecat

on 2012/03/18 12:29:17

I seem to be reading this and the talent tree right... then as a retribution paladin of 3 years, i'm about to lose 90% of my utility, and my raid viability is going to plummet.

I'd really LOVE to know if ghostcrawler really thinks trading off the old BoM, auras, and a good chunk of retribution self reliance is really worth a 5 mastery buff. Oh, we did get the physical debuff... that frost and unholy dks will also bring. Yeah, I sound butthurt, but it's because the way they're treating ret is #$%^ing pissing me off. If I wanted to play a tank class, i'd play one. There's no need to absolutely demolish a tree to encourage people to roll healers and tanks. -_-

Have you look at the actual Ret Spec though?

Spec alone is insufficient to make a conclusion on how well it will perform without actually playing it out

Comment by Adamsm

on 2012/03/18 12:35:26

I think he may be working off the assumption a lot of players are though, that the Talent Trees are it.

Comment by Nathanyal

on 2012/03/18 17:43:21

Yes they aren't losing many skills. Here are the paladin talents, scroll down a little and pick the Ret spec you'll see what all abilities they get. Most of them are becoming passive abilities, such as Supplication being changed from just Holy Light to Flash of Light. Ret is also getting more AoE as HotR is becoming a ret ability as well. And also, the level 45 talents all effect your healing. All of them making Ret able to continue doing some off-healing.

Comment by Greysdawn

on 2012/03/19 04:52:49

Regarding the Female Panda model:

"...I like big butts and I cannot lie..." *sings

Comment by Psychotic

on 2012/03/19 04:55:58

I actually hope that Garrosh isn't the final fight, to be honest.

I never liked his character to begin with, finding it rather predictable that he'd probably spiral out of control and make a huge mess for the Horde. However, I always believed that both Garrosh and Varian had an underlying depth that I was hoping Blizzard wouldn't simply ignore for the sake of making them look like overly aggressive !@#$%^bags.

Blizzard never really did this though, the characters never really "evolved" in that way and it's disappointing. In fact, it's a recurring theme with Blizzard that the best way to deal with a problem is to just kill it off, and that can be pretty wasteful for what could've been decent characters (most of the primary antagonists are like this).

I don't mind killing him in the end, I just find it far more satisfying to see a character evolve and adapt to all their struggles, becoming much deeper and more involved than simply being a tool for the players to end quickly. Ultimately, none of the main antagonists really mean much more than a pin-cushion for the players, since we all know they'll die in the end anyway.

TL;DR: It's too predictable. It was alright the first few times when the concept was new, but now that's all we ever do. See a problem? Go and kill it. Rather than vengeance, what about redemption? That might seem overdone and cliché in normal terms but in World of Warcraft terms, no main villain has ever been "saved" from their ailments. They're simply killed, the players are revered, and then it happens all over again the next year.

Comment by Gothicchick83

on 2012/03/19 12:42:32

So they didn't find out when World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria is coming out? oh well i hope its this year either late this year or early next year it'll give me plenty of time to save up money to upgrade my computer or get a gaming pc (i hope) :(

Comment by Oingoboingo

on 2012/03/19 13:02:35

the only issue i have with this 4th expansion pack, is the same issue that has been with World of Warcraft since the first game. This is the "Lord of the Rings"-esque morality that pink humans in tin cans are the "good guys" and mean green orcs are "the bad guys". And with the Panderans here we go, 'good, moral and self righteous monks' who believe in codes and rules of conduct being Alliance Panderans; while Horde Pandas are all the 'Means Justify the Ends' so being "Mean" justifies the end.What really would have been novel and fresh is having your Panderan toon remain neutral and be able to do all quests all factions all reputations both Alliance and Horde.

Comment by ianbagean

on 2012/03/19 17:27:38

#GARROSH2012

Comment by Israpfel

on 2012/03/19 23:50:40

At first I had no hope for MoP now that I see all these awesome things.. well I now cannot wait for it! seems very legit.. 'Fun glyphs, a farm, companion who becomes a mount, world pvp.. old dungeons returned into heroics, The Monk! and Garrosh becoming totally evil.'